The 15th Annual St. Pat’s for All Parade took place the first Sunday of March in Queens, New York. Established as a counter to the exclusion of LGBTQ groups marching under their own banner from the Fifth Avenue parade, St. Pat’s for All has become a political touchstone of the season.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio attended, as he did last year, instead of the Fifth Avenue parade, which he again declared he would boycott, saying that the parade organizers, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, have not gone far enough to make the parade inclusive, even though one gay rights group, OUTNBC, is marching this year.
“You are here to celebrate no matter what. That is what pride is all about – pride in the fact that in New York City you can be whoever you are,” de Blasio told a crowd gathered in Queens.
“A society for everyone is a society where everyone is respected, where everyone is embraced, where everyone has a say at the table.”
Tony Award winning actor Brían F. O’Byrne, and human rights activist Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, served as the parade’s Grand Marshals. Kennedy has conducted extensive humanitarian work in scores of countries, advocating particularly for women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. She is also a co-founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. ♦
St. Pat’s for All
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